Time to stop talking, rancher says of forests

Andy Groseta said ranchers and others have spent years talking and negotiating with environmental groups about how best to manage the forests and grasslands.

But Groseta, a Cottonwood rancher and the incoming president of the Arizona Cattle Growers Association, said he believes the time for all that is done.

"They have had the past 10 years to collaborate," he said. "It's time for the cows and the chainsaws."

Groseta was a key witness earlier this month at a hearing on forest health at the state Capitol. But in a separate interview he explained that his hard-line stance is a direct result of the devastating wildfires.

"We're in a situation today because some of the actions of these organizations over the years have gotten us to this point," he said. "Are we going to sit and watch one of our most valued features of the state continue to explode, or are we going to do something about it?"

Sierra Club lobbyist Sandy Bahr said it's wrong to conclude that talks and negotiations lead nowhere.

"There is a lot of problem-solving going on and a lot of people working together, focusing on thinning, restoring natural processes like fire and looking to have healthy forests," she said.

Bahr cited the Four Forests restoration initiative, a cooperative effort involving industry, elected officials, forest scientists and environmental groups to increase the number of acres "treated" in northern Arizona's four national forests. She also pointed to a contract to thin 150,000 acres in the White Mountains over the next decade.

Groseta brushed those aside as largely meaningless.

"We're talking about a few thousand acres," he said. "A half-million burned up in four to six weeks."

He did acknowledge there has been thinning around forest communities, efforts that Groseta said saved those towns.

"On the other hand, there's hundreds of thousands and millions of acres out there that need to be treated," he said. All that, he added, convinces him that there needs to be less talk and more action.

From Groseta's perspective, more action means cutting more trees and allowing cattle to graze over more acres.

"When you do not thin your trees, do not harvest trees, do not harvest grass, you have tremendous fuel loads that build," he said.

"It's pretty simple: Trees continue to grow, grass grows every day of the year whether it rains or shines. They need to be harvested."

Bahr said there's a lot of agreement on some areas, like protecting forest communities. And she said there is a general consensus that smaller trees, those with a diameter of 12 inches or less, can be harvested.

Bahr said that environmental interests are being used as a convenient target when the issues are more complex, involving issues like the drought and the larger question of climate change.

The hostility is not entirely surprising. The ranchers have been embroiled in litigation with environmental groups for years. And, as often as not, the ranchers lose.

For example, the Arizona Cattle Growers Association went to court in a bid to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from designating 8.6 million acres of federal lands in the Southwest, including nearly 4 million acres in Arizona, as critical habitat for the Mexican spotted owl.

Attorneys for the ranchers argued the federal agency improperly designated as occupied some areas where no owls are found. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said nothing in federal law requires that a species be continuously present in an area to have it designated as occupied.

Ranchers fought the move, contending it set a bad precedent by giving federal officials carte blanche to designate any area they want as critical habitat when they lack scientific evidence to outline a more specific area.

Critical-habitat designation does not affect activities of private landowners. But it does require federal agencies to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure that anything they do, including issuing permits for activities like grazing on federal lands, does not destroy the habitat.

While the lawsuit was technically against the federal agency, it really originated with the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which had pushed Fish and Wildlife for the habitat designation and intervened to defend it when the cattle growers sued.